2024 Associate Instructors
Andrew Rathgeber
Bio Coming Soon!
Bess Kaye
Bess Kaye (she/they) is a stage combat instructor and Fight and Intimacy Director based out of Washington, DC. She is an Instructor with The Noble Blades Stage Combat Troupe and the Associate Stage Combat Instructor and Resident Intimacy Educator at the Shakespeare Theater Company's Academy MFA program. Her stories of love and violence have been seen on stage with Avant Bard, Chesapeake Shakespeare Company, Monumental Theater Company, the Washington Stage Guild and others. She is a proud Advanced Actor Combatant with the SAFD. www.thebesskayescenario.com
Rodney Rice
Rodney Rice is an Advanced Actor Combatant and fight choreographer based out of Ann Arbor Michigan. He has choreographed fights for multiple theaters in throughout South Eastern Michigan and has worked his way through regional workshops learning from teachers across three country.
Kate Lass
Kate Lass (she/her) is an Advanced Actor Combatant based in Chicago, IL. She both assists SPT courses and teaches private classes at The Actors Gymnasium, and she teaches regularly through her own training studio, Strike & Reason. She has also taught at Open Gate Movement Arts, local high schools and theatres, and at SAFD workshops around the country. Her recent fight choreography credits include the Chicago premier of American Psycho: the Musical (Kokandy Productions), A Midsummer Night's Dream (Big Noise Theatre), The Creators (Three Brothers Theatre), and Grand Family Foods (2nd Act Players). Kate has also trained with the Association of Mental Health Coordinators, TIE, IPEC, and IDI, and brings elements from these trainings into her stage combat work.
J Tyler Jones
J. Tyler Jones (he/him) is thrilled to be at the Brawl for the first time! He has been studying stage combat in one form or another since 2004, and he hopes that he never stops learning more about it. Tyler spent about a decade in southern California working as an actor, teacher, and fight choreographer. He relocated to Washington DC in 2019 to get his MFA and is currently based in the DC area.
Jen Pan
Jen (she/they) is a metro-Detroit-based fight and intimacy choreographer, teacher, martial artist, and occasional creative. In addition to her training with the SAFD, DAI, and IDC, Jen is also the co-founder and a lead instructor at Theatrica Gladiatoria, a year-round academy in SE Michigan for stage and film combat. They're also the co-coordinator of the Mitten Mayhem stage combat workshop held at the end of October. They're passionate about lifelong learning, trauma-informed pedagogy, intimacy and consent work, and greater BIPOC and LGBTQ+ representation in the arts.
